Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan is applauding the new focus that will be placed on educating the public about agriculture and building consumer trust in the food supply as part of the new Canadian Agricultural Partnership.
Earlier this week, as Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay outlined details of the new Canadian Agricultural Partnership that will come into effect April 1st, he announced the partnership will include the first public framework to recognize public trust as a priority.
Clinton Monchuk, the Executive Director of Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan, says as the population in Canada becomes more and more urban that connection to the farm just isn't there.

Clip-Clinton Monchuk-Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan:
Roughly 97 plus percent of the population have no direct connection to the farm.
When you see the change with consumers' attitudes, they can sense that there's been changes that have been happening in food production and they don't really fully understand what has happened or why.
We only have about nine percent of the population that feels that they're informed and they understand agriculture or farming and ranching in general so that means you have 91 percent that know little or nothing about what we're doing.
We know that farmers and ranchers are trusted and, when you talk to farmers or ranchers or you have any conversation that goes on in rural Canada, you can see the level of passion that farmers and ranchers have for what they do.
When you're looking at the disequilibrium between the knowledge of consumers and how passionate Canadian farmers and ranchers are, we need to have more farmers and ranchers going out and talking about what they're doing to make sure the public is actually informed about the practices that we're doing on farms and ranches.

Monchuk says when the Minister came out with his statement it was an excellent acknowledgment of the fact that we need to build public trust in agriculture in this country and it's great that policies are being amended to make this a priority.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.